


Because They Must

by keyboardclicks



Category: The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue Series - Mackenzi Lee
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Percy's a mess too but slightly less so, monty is a mess, rated for language, self-deprecation, they're doing their best
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-14
Updated: 2018-07-14
Packaged: 2019-06-10 05:32:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15284748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keyboardclicks/pseuds/keyboardclicks
Summary: Sometimes Monty can absolutely roll with the punches and take each new day as it comes.And sometimes he ends up crying on the floor because he burnt dinner.





	Because They Must

“Monty?”  The door clicks shut behind Percy as he crosses the threshold and sets his fiddle case down against the wall.  “What’s wrong?”

“Wrong?” I ask.  “I don’t see why you assume something is wrong, darling.”

Percy’s eyebrows raise and the corner of his mouth quips up as if he’s trying not to smile.  He gazes slowly around the room. “Well…” he says. “Considering you’re on the floor, and there look to be the charred remains of what I assume was once meat on the stove, I think my line of thinking is rather obvious.”

He grins at me.  I frown at the hardwood floor.  Damn deductive reasoning. Damn me for not cleaning up the mess before he got home.

A hand is extended towards me, likely to help me up off the floor, but I ignore it and pull my knees up to my chest.  As it is I’m far too annoyed to stand, so if Percy wants me to go anywhere he’ll have to carry or drag me there himself.

The hand retracts.

After a moment of studying me, Percy paces over and slides down to sit against my side with one hand on my knee, and because Percy is Percy and I am me I lean my head against his shoulder.  I can’t help but ease my body in the space his creates when it’s so readily offered to me.

Percy is very good at being quiet, which is unfortunate in situations like this where I know he wants me to talk about what’s wrong because _I_ have to be the one to break the silence.  I know he’s only being patient and waiting for me to be ready but sometimes I wish he would just push a bit to give me an opening!  This whole situation is stupid and tedious and I’d give my left arm for the whole thing to just disappear and leave us to have the rest of the evening in peace.  (Well.. maybe not my entire left arm, that’s a bit extreme. Perhaps one of my fingers?)

“I was trying to make fish,” I say eventually, because I feel as if I’ll explode if one of us doesn’t say something.

“Ah,” Percy says, “so _that’s_ the black lump on the stove.”

“It was meant to be a surprise,” I continue, ignoring him.  “Thought it couldn’t be too hard to make a bit of fish. But everything went to hell and I ruined it and burnt my hand and now we’ve nothing to eat for supper-”

“You burnt your hand?”

I groan and nod, digging my face into his shoulder and lifting said hand to display the injury.  “Got too close to the fire.”

“You bandaged it pretty well, though,” he offers.  “It’s actually staying on this time!”

“I don’t ignore _everything_ Felicity says, you know!  I was listening to her advice right up to the part about sewing wounds shut.”

Percy grimaces and makes a disgusted noise in his throat.  “Don’t remind me of that. I still feel queasy when I think about the time we saw her sewing her arm up.  She has nerves of steel, your sister.”

“Mm.”  I want to fall asleep against Percy’s side and wake up tomorrow to pretend this evening never happened.  When the on my knee moves to my hair and I lean into the touch; Percy playing with my hair never fails to make me either sleepy or aroused.

“Really, Monty, don’t worry about the fish.  I made enough coin today that we can go out and buy something fresh if we really are out of food.  Though, I could have sworn we had some potatoes left? And some bread?”

“We do,” I admit.  “But… well, the fish was supposed to be a treat for us.  We’ve barely had any sorts of meat since we got here-” who knew it was so bloody expensive? “-and I thought it would be nice so I bought it while I was out today.  But then I went and burnt it and now it’s ruined because I can’t figure my way around a goddamn kitchen.” Truth be told the fish was rather ruined even before I burnt it; gutting a fish and getting all its little bones out is bloody impossible!

“We’ll have more fish,” placates Percy.

“But I wasted all that money!”  Why is food so bloody expensive?!  

“We’ll get more.”

I huff and dig my face into the crook of his shoulder, clenching my jaw to keep it from trembling.

“I’m really not angry with you,” he offers.  “I mean, it’s not as if either of us is a very good cook.  I’m sure you gave it your best go. If you like, we can go out and get some more and give it another- Monty are you crying?”

I lift my head and hastily wipe my eyes.  “No.”

“Monty.”

My shirtsleeve presses into my eyelids so firmly I see spots in the darkness of my vision, soaking up tears before they can fall.  Percy lays an arm across my shoulders, leaning his weight against me and turning his body so that he can lay his other hand atop my knee.  Crying makes my whole body shake and I keep my face buried in my sleeve for Percy’s sake as well as my own dignity; my nose has started to run and I refuse to subject him to my disgusting, snotty-crying face any more than absolutely necessary.

This is so stupid.   _I’m_ so stupid.  We’ve faced so much together and a bit of burnt fish is what it takes to make me cry?  We can get more! It’s sold at half the shops up and down the bloody coastline! But at the same time we could use that money for something else.  We could save it for something better, or for a rainy day; Percy has been all about that lately, saving money for a rainy day. I should have waited for him to get home in the first place because no matter what he says he has a much better eye for cooking than I do and we may have gotten something at least slightly edible.  I shouldn’t be left on my own; I make more trouble than I’m worth. It’s a miracle I’m trusted to do anything by myself at the greengrocer’s down the street. It’s a miracle he hired me. Sooner or later I’m going to send a crate of oranges rolling into the sea, I just know it.

“Sorry I’m so bloody useless,” I mutter.  Percy tuts.

“Monty…”

“Can’t even fix us dinner when you’ve been out working all day.”

“We’re both learning,” he patiently repeats.  “You’ve never had to cook before this month, darling, you can’t expect to have picked it up over night.  You’ll get the hang of it.”

Finally I take my face out of my arm.  Percy is looking at me with the kindest, gentlest expression that makes me both want to kiss him and bash him upside the head.  “But what if I don’t? What if I don’t get the hang of it? What if I’m too useless and stupid to make it without servants to do everything for me?”  Curling them up tighter against my chest, my arms wrap around my legs. My chin rests on my knee. “What if I never learn how to do any of this-” and here I gesture wildly at the expanse of our apartment, messy and cramped as it is “-this… making it on our own stuff?  What if I lose my job and we can’t get enough money for food? What if you get sick with a fever and I don’t know how to help? What if you hit your head during a fit and I can’t get a doctor in time? Fuck!” I throw my head back, hitting it painfully on the wall, then look over at Percy as more tears fill my eyes and my throat aches with the effort of not crying.  “I’m scared, Perce! There, I said it! I’m so, so bloody scared and I _hate it_ because we have been through so much worse than this and if we can survive being pursued across the continent by a murderous duke I should be able to make a simple bloody _fish!”_

Percy’s mouth is open slightly when he stares at me, looking reasonably shocked at my impromptu speech.  I dive to put my sniffling face into my knees but he catches me and pulls me towards him with a sharp tug to my arm.  Upon following his lead I find myself straddling his lap with my chin resting against one of his shoulders. His hands lay against my lower back, and were I not crying this position would be doing very indecent things to the inseam of my trousers.

“I’m scared, too, Monty, if it helps,” he says quietly into my ear.

“It doesn’t,” I grouse.  “That just means that neither of us know what the hell we’re doing.”

Percy ignores this.  “Of course we’re scared; this is _scary._ I have about as much experience on my own as you do- maybe even less, since I didn’t go away for school.  I don’t know how to cook, I barely know the language of the bloody country we’re in-” His chin rests again my shoulder now.  I’m holding him tight under his arms. “-and I can hardly even get a proper job because of my seizures! All I can do is play my fiddle for tips, and that’s all well and good now but what about when the cold weather comes?  Will I have to just sit around the flat like an invalid while you work for our bread?”

Good Lord, I hadn’t even considered that.  What are Grecian winters like? We’re further south than England, so they must be more mild… right?

“But things will work out,” he continues, oblivious to the new point of anxiety I will likely fester about for the next week.  “They’ll work out, because they have to. Things can’t stay the same way forever, and even if it’s not exactly as we plan there will always be a solution.”

Breathing becomes momentarily difficult when Percy’s grip around me tightens, but it rather makes me feel safe and I want to bury into his warmth and never leave.

“I can’t say how everything will go, but what I _can_ say is that we’ll figure it out together.  If you lose your job, you’ll find another one.  If one of us gets sick, the other will nurse him until he’s well.  And don’t forget, Monty; I know how to prepare myself for a fit. I’m not going to go and crack my head open, I promise.”

Oh, dammit.  I did that thing again, didn’t I?  Stupid, stupid Monty!

“Right, sorry,” I groan, bringing my face out of his neck to lay my palm against my face.  “I know you do… I just- it’s really scary, Perce, I’m not going to lie. And yeah, that’s really selfish and  it has to be like, a thousand times worse for you because you’re the one it’s _happening_ to and I’m trying not to treat you like you’re different because of your epilepsy because you’re still the same Percy as you always have been you just have these fits sometimes and you’ve had them for years and you’re _fine_ but I just-” I give in to the strain of crying when the pain of holding it back is too much and I hiccup out, “I don’t want to lose you…”

Swear to God, Percy must be an actual angel.  He kisses the side of my head and lays it back against his shoulder, one hand moving up my back to pet comfortingly at my hair and I instantly feel a hundred times better.  Or ten. Five, at least. “You’re not going to lose me, Monty, I promise.”

How much longer is this damn crying going to last?  It’s giving me a bloody headache.

“What do I always do before I have a fit?” Percy asks, and I only realize that I’m meant to answer once the question hangs for too long in the semi-silence.

“You lay down in bed,” I answer quietly into his shirt.  “Or on the floor.”

“Why do I do that?”

“So you don’t hurt yourself.”

“Right.”  He rubs my head with small, firm circles of his fingers.  It feels so good, especially when the pads of his fingers begin pressing against the back of my neck, that I find myself beginning to relax.  We fit together like pieces of a puzzle box, tangled so close that its impossible to tell where one of us end and the other begins.

“We’re going to be alright, Monty,” Percy says.  “Whatever happens, we’ll be alright. Know why? Because this, you and me here together?  Making our own way in the world? It’s the good choice. I can go where I want, and do what I want, and eat what I want, whenever I want.  I can play my fiddle, or go walk by the sea, and there’s nobody to tell me I can’t!” He presses his face against my cheek. “And I have you, which is the most bloody amazing part of it all.  

“So even if this is scary, which it is, there is no other way I would have had things turn out because the only other option was you in England with your father and me in an asylum in Holland and neither of us ever seeing each other again.  And… that would have killed me, Monty.” He swallows. “It really would have.”

My first reaction is to tell him to stop, that he isn’t allowed to talk like this because he is Percy and the thought of him broken enough to want to die is absolutely unacceptable.  But I don’t say this because, given my track record of depressing conversations regarding my own life, I feel it would be a bit hypocritical.

Percy rouses me with a squeeze.  “So you see,” he says, quite matter of fact, “we are not going to die of starvation or fever because this is the better option where we _don’t_ both die of broken hearts.  And because it is the better option we are going to figure our way out around a kitchen, learn to cook a fish, and go on to live very long and very exciting lives which will be so full of adventure and scandal that our names will be in history books.”

A laugh breaks through me, which hurts as my head is still sore from crying.  Percy’s shoulder is thoroughly covered in my tears and snot, which I feel rather guilty for upon picking my head up to look at him but he doesn’t seem to mind.

“If I’m being honest, I think I’ve had enough adventure for at least half my life,” I say, giving my best go at cleaning up my face with my sleeve.  “And scandal rather loses its appeal after a time.” And despite my face being undoubtedly red and puffy, I flash a smile full of dimples and charm and add, “Except for you, of course.  You, Percy Newton, are my favorite scandal.”

“And you, Monty-” he cuts himself off with a laugh that makes his nose wrinkle and his eyes scrunch up.  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry- I was going to say ‘you’re my favorite adventure’ but it’s so ridiculous sounding that I can’t even manage it as a joke.  Are you terribly disappointed in me?”

“Horribly, but I shall forgive you this once.”

“How generous.”

“I am the pinnacle of generosity.”

Our laughter shakes each other.  Percy’s fingers continue soothing circles into the back of my neck.

“Why don’t we go get some more fish?” he asks.  “We can give it another go.”

“In a bit,” I murmur.  “I don’t want to move.”

“Mmm."  Percy shifts beneath me, just slightly.  "Me, neither.”

And so we don’t.


End file.
